The following post on another topic got me interested in the idea of artists dismissiing their own work in hindsight:

Ed Organus Maximus wrote:

To be quite honest, I can't understand how anybody could possibly like ALL ninety four currently existing titles. Most people would agree that each artist is bound to make a subpar album. Apparently not the ones who are quick to dismiss this thread as "stupid". Even more strange is FZ' assertion that he liked ALL of what he ever did. Heck, most other artists would probably say this album or that album is subpar. Or "What on earth were we on when we recorded this?". Kraftwerk, for instance, does not even care to acknowledge that the three pre-Autobahn albums existed, let alone the Organisation LP.

If you are aware of any stories of artist's trying to distance themselves from previous output for any reason, I would love to hear about it. I'll get us started with the one that comes to mind for me, Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother. It is certainly one of my favorite releases of theirs, but the band have mostly dismissed it at this point.

Gilmour has said the album was "a load of rubbish. We were at a real down point ... I think we were scraping the barrel a bit at that period".

Waters said "If somebody said to me now – right – here's a million pounds, go out and play Atom Heart Mother, I'd say you must be fucking joking."

Waters also stated that he wouldn't object if the piece were "thrown into the dustbin and never listened to by anyone ever again."

_________________“The power of pop music to corrupt and putrify the minds of world youth are virtually limitless."

Last edited by duchamp on Wed Apr 24, 2013 1:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The first song A Visit to Newport Hospital is the best piece. As with the first album, Dave's playing is the best thing, particularly his fuzz organ solos. I didn't enjoy the sessions which seemed to me turgid and unsatisfying. I don't like the album.

_________________Lies are like quicksand, soft and comfortable, but they will swallow us. Truth is like bedrock, hard and uncomfortable, but we can always stand on it

I've only got two Floyd albums at the moment Atom Heart Mother & MeddleI don't mind Atom Heart, there's some good bits...Funky Dung is a good bluesy jamWhen I sold hifi in the mid 70's I'd use the motorcycle bit for demosCertainly sounded impressive through the Cerwin-Vega towers! hehListening to those horn guys struggle reminds me a bit of Grand Wazoo

Also, you are reminding me that I've been wanting to reread one of Isaac Asimov's autobiographies. Yes, one of them, he wrote multiple books about himself. Anyway, he was of the opinion that an artist was no more or less qualified to judge their own work than anyone else, whether than person was trained in the field that is being judged or not. It may be years before I find the quote, lets hope I find this thread when I do.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Don't Be Stupid Unless You Want To

To dismiss AHM is preposterous, one thing is to say there were sync problems in the recording, details one didn't like, maybe not their peak of creativity, that is ok. But to dismiss the whole thing altogether is not reasonable. It was a hit here in Brazil. Not by far one of the Floyd's best, but better than More, Obscured By Clouds or Ummagumma (the studio at least) for me. It is not a pile of cow manure. Gessin's input, as well as Wright's and Gilmour's are good too.

_________________The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true Art and Science. - Albert Einstein

Les did? Really?Distancing yourself from clearly inferior work by yourself is a bold move that shows great personal growth; but when you look at Gogol, he destroyed several endings to his magnificently funny novel Dead Souls: so many that there is no ending left. If you buy a copy of the book, there may be scraps at the end that have been found, but it's a pain that such a great work has no original ending. Like Mozart's Lacrimosa, but that was because Mozart had died, not abandoned it.For me: I toss 98% of my work in the bin, or at least I keep it in a place where nobody'll ever see it. One thing that still hurts a bit is that I threw away my first comic, Mima the giraffe. I made 5 gag pages of the baby giraffe, can only remember 2 and don't recall how badly they looked.

I was recently given a large old suitcase full of my childhood drawings, paintings and 15 undeveloped rolls of film dating back to around 1962 through to about 1973-74. Unbeknown to me my father and grandmother, who are now both long gone, must have been collecting these things and somehow my uncle/god father who passed away late last year had the suitcase among his possessions. I can remember this suitcase from a very early age as it had my fathers name painted on it, as was the custom in the old days. My cousins came across it when they were closing up the uncles house. Primary school finger paintings through to college art projects and everything inbetween it's all there. We had an old box brownie camera which I was obsessed with from about the age of five, I have a photographer friend developing those films and some from my later photographic escapades taken with slightly more modern equipment.My mother died when I was nine, so hopefully there are a bunch of pictures of her from around that time. There could be some FZ, Alice Cooper, Rory Gallagher and Lou Reed candid and concert photos from the early 70's, I remember taking the photo's but I don't recall having ever seeing them...here's hoping. My teenage artwork, if you can call it that, would probably get me several years worth of psychiatric sessions If I was 13 and produced them today, pretty dark and gruesome stuff. I was listening to a lot of Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath and Uriah Heep even then and it shows in my choice of colours and themes. Considering how conservative my folks were, it's surprising any of this stuff was kept...There was also a wooden box with some of my fathers high school sketches, which I hadn't seen for over 40 years, he was really talented, but as an adult I could count on one hand the amount of times I saw him draw, his father dissuaded him from pursuing art as a career, because there was no money in it. It was 1943 and everybody was a little buzy with world war two, which definatly influenced his teenage drawings....

Considering it was the album that made Tim Alexander quit the first time...yeah. I personally love Tales from the Punchbowl. Mrs. Blaileen and Over the Electric Grapevine are some tasty tracks. Now that they have Jay Lane playing skins they can pretty much play any material, he doesn't seem to be picky. I'm sure he's glad to finally in the band he helped get Cali-famous.

I miss it to, but I love Jay Lane. I would love to see Sausage go on another tour. The album and the Les solo project dvd just aren't enough!

Back on topic:

Robert Fripp pretty much disowned all pre-Belew King Crimson songs except "Red" and "Lark's Tongue and Aspic Pt. II" once Discipline hit the stores. From what I've read, when the 21st Century Schizoid Band got together and asked him about performing the old stuff he pretty much said "Go for it, I'm not gonna play that rubbish."

I miss it to, but I love Jay Lane. I would love to see Sausage go on another tour. The album and the Les solo project dvd just aren't enough!

Back on topic:

Robert Fripp pretty much disowned all pre-Belew King Crimson songs except "Red" and "Lark's Tongue and Aspic Pt. II" once Discipline hit the stores. From what I've read, when the 21st Century Schizoid Band got together and asked him about performing the old stuff he pretty much said "Go for it, I'm not gonna play that rubbish."

Fripp has lightened up somewhat since then. In the wake of Steven Wilson's 5.1 Crimson mixes, Fripp has reappraised the music and now even has some decent things to say about Lizard, an album that he usually ripped on pretty hard.

...Gilmour has said the album was "a load of rubbish. We were at a real down point ... I think we were scraping the barrel a bit at that period"....

Ohhhh ... is that like saying that some of the rubbish in his own album is better than anything else?

Give it a break Dave!

duchamp wrote:

...Waters said "If somebody said to me now – right – here's a million pounds, go out and play Atom Heart Mother, I'd say you must be fucking joking."...

So would I ... and what easy money it is, but if he put together, this and Echoes, I bet a whole bunch of people would show up, including you and I!

You gotta be a jerk to be offered free money and not take it!

duchamp wrote:

...Waters also stated that he wouldn't object if the piece were "thrown into the dustbin and never listened to by anyone ever again."

I think that is more of a joke than anything else ... so anything he says is more important than saying nothing and just fooling around with sound effects, and maybe get a famous dance company to play along and look stupid ... which now we know why it was stupid ... because it got trashed, not because it meant anything to anyone.

Generally, I defend an artist's rights to let go of their past ... it's not the same people, or band anymore, and they were no longer interested in playing their old hits ... but if all this was trash, goodness, even Dave enjoyed doing "A Saucerful of Secrets" and "One of These Days", so it's not likely that it was trash ... but it's a much better selling point if you make sure the last album sells even more before it goes away!

Even Picasso, said that he didn't care for a lot of his early work, and that sometimes he thought it was empty! Dali went further and said ... the girls got uglier and they were not prettier or sexier than Gala! ... and you can go on and on ... I think he knew that the Playboy girls were plastic!

People change, and later they see things differently .... and if you are 50 and still dreaming of that girl you had fun with at 25, and then hitting the wife and turn over with a cigarette or snore ... then, we're having the wrong discussion?

Roger and David get a lot of really stupid questions, and I really think that after a while you don't care about the answers anymore, and say anything ... becasue we're so dang gullible it's not funny! ... we don't even see the humor or sarcasm behind it. It's like saying Roger or David were idiots and stupid when they were younger and kids ... and you know it's not true, because of the work they did!

Last edited by Moshkito on Sat May 04, 2013 2:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

...Fripp has lightened up somewhat since then. In the wake of Steven Wilson's 5.1 Crimson mixes, Fripp has reappraised the music and now even has some decent things to say about Lizard, an album that he usually ripped on pretty hard.

It was about 2 years ago, that I read some stuff that he said some nasty things about that early work. I went on his website and I wrote a diatribe about his so called inner this and that, and then go around and kick himself in the arse. On top of it, who was he, to deny the existence and value of that work, and specially the 1st album ... that could be considered bad, but got rehearsed and cleaned up to be magnificent! ... and I joked that the shoe and guitar polish looked really good, and I was not on acid.

It was a tirade for the ages.

You can not sit here, or anywhere, and rip a side of yourself, and your person, something that you played for so many years, and stood by for so long ... only to quit because of your own anger and disappointments in life! Fine example you are of a person ... a total hippocrit that would still be collecting some money from it!

I never got an answer ... I didn't deserve one ... but in the end, and this goes with my own reviews and discussions about the work by many musicians during that time, up to and including today ... is one of the best snapshots of the time and place, you will ever find ... and if he doesn't like that, he's only making sure you don't see him in the picture, because he doesn't have a good/reasonable opinion of himself -- at the time.

He has gotten a lot better since, and funnier ... but still very silly about his anger!

...Robert Fripp pretty much disowned all pre-Belew King Crimson songs except "Red" and "Lark's Tongue and Aspic Pt. II" once Discipline hit the stores. From what I've read, when the 21st Century Schizoid Band got together and asked him about performing the old stuff he pretty much said "Go for it, I'm not gonna play that rubbish."

During his 1984 lecture tour, Fripp said he hated all his previous efforts except for two."No Pussyfooting" (Fripp & Eno)"Scary Monsters" (David Bowie)

_________________You're probably wondering why I'm here(not that it makes a heck of a lot of a difference to ya)

He was having some financial issues in those days, and it did not help him a whole lot. He probably should have taken a serious sabbatical and go to a monastery for a while until he either grew up, or quit for good.

But I don't think he can. There is a side of the "fame" that he is obviously subliminally attracted to and he won't admit it to himself, otherwise he would not be there! He's just not allowing himself a chance to define it for himself!

I'm thinking that if he were to play ITCOTCK again, anywhere, he would want to do it differently, but I'm not sure that the "fans" would like it as much!

Honestly? ... I would rather see Fripp and Eno on the stage for 2 hours, than KC ... end of story! The experimentations, the sound and everything else would be more fun for me. In fact, I would gather the work from 100 not known artists and you would see them all in a light show of some sort!

I'm just tired of the rock/jazz/popmusic thing ... and the same thing with the FZ vault stuff!

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